Ride-hailing apps and autonomous cars promise more convenient and comfortable travel, but that doesn’t mean the end of public transportation. Mercedes-Benz passed a key milestone Monday in using new technology to revamp tried-and-true buses.

The concept bus’s self-driving technology is called CityPilot. A human driver can still take control at any point, but the bus’s monitoring systems, detailed map data, GPS tracking, and vehicle-to-object communication system allows it to operate itself in nearly every situation, even at speeds up to 43 miles an hour.

With the number of people living in cities growing, one of the goals of future public transportation is to make it possible for urban travelers to move for efficiently (avoiding or even preventing gridlock) and more safely. Autonomous buses are seen as a possible step in that direction.

Trains, which operate in an even more controlled environment, are already taking the lead in autonomous transportation.

One of the world’s largest metro systems is eliminating the need for human operators, Max Lewontin reported for The Christian Science Monitor in April. The managing director of Delhi Metro Corporation predicts riders in India will be able to travel in a driverless train by the end of the year. Lewotin wrote,